Monday, October 01, 2007

Rock Climbing in Yangshuo, China

Here I am again, telling people about another of my amazing vacations. I'm sorry to say that as usual, I didn't see the main touristy sites. I didn't see the Great Wall. I didn't go to Beijing, and I didn't go to Shanghai. I had three weeks...and I went rock climbing....and it was awesome.

I went to Yangshuo, which is very close to the larger town of Guilin in the Southeast of China. The landscape is absolutely incredible. The thousands upon thousands of limestone karst formations aren't just in one small place, but everywhere for miles and miles. It really is a rock climber's paradise, especially nowadays since it's a bit of a virgin paradise. People have only been rock climbing here for less than 15 years, and only a handful of the karsts have established routes. The majority are sport climbs, with bolts and anchors, but there's the odd multipitch here and there for the trad climbers.

The town of Yangshuo is a quickly growing tourist town filled with chinese tourists and nagging salesmen. It probably has the most number of English speakers of any small town in China. The streets are filled with coffee shops and cafes serving Chinese and Western food. You can get off the main drag and find cheaper and more delicious food in the local markets.

Like I said I went to Yangshuo for rock climbing and I did some climbing most every day. On days that I didn't climb, I still went out to the crags to take some pictures. I found the joys of sitting at the top of the climb for 2 hours while my legs fell asleep, taking millions of pictures, then spending hours deleting all of them but the one or two good ones. I met some absolutely amazing people of all different backgrounds and nationalities. We all got along together very well and all of the friends I met were able to help me grow in many ways.

Before I left, I spent three days in Jeju camping at the beach

Yangshuo is a busy town, full of Chinese and International tourists

You take a short walk through the smaller villages to get to the crags

8 comments:

Once again Dan, you've got some awesome pics, especially some of those action shots. Maybe I should start taking millions of pics too - although I dont think I have the patience to sort through them all. I love the pic of the woman in highheels!